


Over the School Fence

by Logically



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Over the Garden Wall Fusion, Attempt at Humor, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Spooky, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 04:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Logically/pseuds/Logically
Summary: "We're lost, aren't we?"Out of all the things he expected to happen that week, somehow ending up in a really spooky forest with his friend and no memory of how they got there was not one of them.Both of our protagonists are determined to stay hopeful during their journey through the mysterious Unknown, but it's not like they have a choice. After all, the death of hope means becoming prey to the Beast...





	Over the School Fence

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Over the Garden Wall or Danganronpa. This work is purely for my own entertainment and for writing practice. Over the Garden Wall was created by Katie Krentz and Patrick McHale. (Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3718778/ Article: "Over the Garden Wall" Date accessed: 05/01/2019) Danganronpa was written by Kazutaka Kodaka. (Source: http://danganronpa.wikia.com/wiki/Kazutaka_Kodaka Article: "Profile" Date accessed: 05/01/2019)

A sound that was sickeningly similar to that of bones snapping sounded out repeatedly alongside the rustling of dead leaves. No birds sung, no bugs buzzed; he couldn't even hear the breathing of the girl walking ahead of him. It was somewhat of a small miracle that no one had spoken for so long, usually between his anxiety and her need to infect others with her enthusiasm conversation flowed as easily as a clean river. Perhaps this was why after who knows how log being almost smothered by the heavy blanket of silence, Shuichi felt the irresistible urge to speak, as if the words were heavily flinging themselves against his lips. 

"We're lost, aren't we?" Immediately he winced at the question. Out of all the possible things to say, he had to say that? Before he could try to backpedal, the blonde before him stopped suddenly. Just as he was swerving to avoid bumping into her, the girl inhaled deeply and uttered: "Yes, we're lost."

Kaede Akamatsu sounded completely dejected, and Shuichi felt the floor of his stomach disappear. If the most cheerful and optimistic person in class couldn't find a way to look on the bright side of this admittedly dismal situation, then was there any hope at all of getting home? The frown on her face looked as about right as a beard on the Mona Lisa.

Hold on... getting home? The boy observed their surroundings; when did they enter a forest? He vaguely remembered bolting away from that woman, something about a fence, and-

He mentally slapped himself: now was not the time to be thinking of the past when his friend clearly needed cheering up in the present. Subsequently he scraped together what ounces of courage he possessed and tried to force his voice not to stutter: "Kaede, I really think we can-"

The sentence was abruptly cut short as a hand was placed over the speaker's mouth. He looked over at her questioningly, but she wasn't even facing him, her gaze instead intently focused on a spot in the distance. "Do you hear that?" She was still covering his mouth, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to remove it. Now that he was actively listening for something though, he found that he could make out something in the seemingly endless folds of quiet that had pervaded throughout the wood since their arrival. A sort of low singing, the sort you'd expect if the person doing it didn't want to be heard.

Without another word Kaede moved off in the direction of the voice, almost as if the sound had filled her with energy. After a few seconds of dumbfounded stillness, Shuichi followed.

It wasn't long before they came to a clearing that was full of tree stumps. Less than a stone's throw away a soft yellow light shifted among the branches of the trees like a swift river over pebbles. It was from this direction that the voice originated, along with the very obvious 'thud' noise of an axe biting into wood. Kaede's eyes shined as if lanterns had been lit behind them. "That voice must belong to a person! We should ask them for directions!" Just as she was about to run off to do just that, Shuichi stopped her with a hand on her elbow. His eyes had widened to the point that they vaguely resembled golf balls.

"Wait! What if that person's an axe murderer stalking the woods for their next victim, or a human trafficker looking to kidnap lost kids?! What if-" During his outburst, the light and voice had moved away, leaving inky darkness and the familiar silence in their wake. As soon as he noticed this, Shuichi's mouth clamped shut, and for a single blissful moment the thoughts in his head stilled. Then it was as if his mind was kicked into overdrive; thoughts were bouncing off of the walls of his skull frantically, crashing into one another and tearing themselves apart. Suddenly the possibility of the stranger being dangerous seemed minimal when compared with being permanently lost in the woods. He would have kicked himself if Kaede hadn't been there to gently scold him for being too self-deprecating, so he started to hyper ventilate instead.

"Oh my word, oh my word, we're going to be stuck here forever all because of me and we'll probably die from exposure or some animal will maul us and it'll be all my fault-" Out of nowhere, warm hands painfully landed on either side of his face, and his eyes became full of Kaede Akamatsu. "Shuichi, get a hold of yourself! Panicking like that will do us no good. Now, we're going to find that person again; they can't have gone far, and one person means that there has to be more, right? Well findeed our way out of these woods, I'm sure of it." For a few seconds he just stared, speechless. Then he realised just how uncomfortably close their faces were to one another: he could feel her breath. 

Just as he was about to leap away with an undoubtedly beetroot-red face, a voice broke the tension as effectively as a hammer breaks glass. "Soooo, are you guys going to make out? If so I'll come back another time, because no one wants to see that. No one." Both of them jumped violently, and Shuichi took the opportunity to move away from Kaede. Hopefully the shade of the trees would hide his burning face.

He asked "Who's there?" at the same time Kaede called out: "Hello?" Silence once more smothered the area, and Shuichi has begun to think that he and Kaede had some sort of shared Delusion, when the same voice shouted: "Are you two stupid or something? Look up!" Shuichi did so, and promptly pinched himself because he had to be dreaming. Sitting on a branch directly above his head was a bird with a black body and mostly white wings, and it was staring at them. When he didn't wake up he came to the perfectly logical conclusion that he had finally gone insane, and this certainly wasn't helped when the bird continued to speak: "What's the matter? Haven't you seen a talking bird before?"

Shuichi went slack jawed. He didn't even notice when Kaede came to stand next to him, followed his gaze, and then started to look at him worryingly. After a while she nudged him and said his name.

"That bird talked." The statement was uttered with as much matter-of-factness as saying that water is wet, but the girl just raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Talked? Shuichi, unless that's some sort of weird-looking parrot, I really doubt it." 

At this remark the bird turned its little head so quickly towards Kaede that Shuichi worried about the thing getting whiplash. "Parrot? Parrot?! I'll have you know that I'm a magpie thank you very much! You know I was going to help you get home, but after such a heinous insult I don't think I can find it within myself to work with such wretched people!" With that the small creature spread its wings and flew off, its figure quickly being lost in the growing darkness between the trees. "Well... that was odd." Kaede's voice was strangely flat, as if what had just happened was just too strange to be emotional about.

"I should say so." The words were spoken softly, but something about the tone made the boy feel like there were little spiders made of ice crawling up and down his spine. Beside him Kaede yelped and whirled around to confront the newcomer, Shuichi not following far behind. Where he had been expecting some grizzled middle-aged man, instead they were presented with a boy probably not much older than themselves. He was wearing a gray and black striped shirt along with a gray jacket, but the monochrome nature of those was immediately offset the second you looked at his head. It looked as if someone had dumped the dead grass that a lawnmower left behind there and then styled it to look like hair. On his left wrist were a ridiculous number of bracelets, the amount of which was only rivalled by how many ear piercings he had. The stranger also wore a nondescript pair of jeans and trainers. In short, he looked as if he had been plucked straight from the pages of a fashion magazine and unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a wood, apart from three things. Firstly, he appeared to be carrying logs on his back held together by a metal frame. Secondly, his left hand held on to the handle of an old-fashioned lantern, the type that police officers might have used before electricity. In his right hand, glinting wickedly in the firelight was an axe.

Apparently he was unaware of how threatening he looked, or perhaps it was because he was aware of this that he smiled at the teenagers before him pleasantly, and spoke calmly when he asked: "Now, what would two young adults such as you be doing wondering around the woods at night? It's dangerous, you know."

It was almost as if Shuichi's lips had been glued shut. First finding himself in a forest with no memory of how he got there, a talking bird, and now this? I'll just switch my brain off for a while if you don't mind, world. As a result, he didn't notice when Kaede took a step forward and responded the stranger with: "We're not here because we want to be: we're lost and trying to find our way home. I don't suppose you can give us directions out of these woods?"

As he listened to the girl's words, the smile melted from his face like candle wax around a flame. When he talked next it was with a slightly deeper voice, and a blank face. "I don't know how you got so lost that you wound up in the Unknown, but if what you say is true, you'll need all the help you can get."

The girl cocked her head like a dog in confusion. "The... Unknown?"


End file.
